Yahoo 7 reporter Krystal Johnson leaves the supreme court of Victoria in Melbourne on Tuesday. The Sydney journalist faced court after a story she wrote on a Victorian murder trial caused the jury to be discharged.
Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

An inexperienced Sydney journalist “forgot” she was writing about a murder trial when she published a news story that resulted in a jury being discharged in Melbourne.

Yahoo 7 reporter Krystal Johnson has apologised to the Victorian supreme court, which heard she by-passed sub-editors because they were “busy” to publish a news story about a murder trial based on information she found online.

Justice Lex Lasry said Johnson’s explanation for how she came to publish the prejudicial material “strains credibility”.

He’s referred the “very serious breach” to the director of public prosecutions, who could pursue contempt of court charges.

Johnson was called to Victoria on Tuesday to explain herself to the court after Justice Lasry was forced to abort the trial last week.

Lawyer Justin Quill, for Johnson, told the court his client “forgot” she was writing about a murder trial.

She had been compiling the story when she was “called away” because of breaking news.

“She forgot the first part of the report that this was a trial,” Quill said. “There was a time gap between preparing that part.”

Quill also told the court Ms Johnson had begun preparing her story based on material sourced from Australian Associated Press.

AAP covered the filing hearing last year but not the trial opening. AAP did not provide material on the trial to Yahoo 7, which is a subscriber.

Quill offered an unreserved apology on behalf of Johnson, telling the court she had been vilified online and punished enough.

It was “human error”, he added. Johnson published the story online without referring it to subeditors because she saw they were busy.

Quill said rather than being “lazy” Johnson was being “overzealous” by trying to include as much information in her story as possible.

Crown prosecutor Andrew Tinney said the publication of the story was a failure of management.

The delay in the trial had caused anguish to the victim’s family and traumatised the accused and his family, he said.

“The concern is not just for this trial, but the integrity of future trials.”

Justice Lasry said guidelines for covering Victorian trials were available on the supreme court website. It was a fundamental rule that material not before a jury should not be published.

Johnson was supported in court by Yahoo 7’s head of editorial Simon Wheeler.